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Vivek Kundra to Leave White House Tech Post

Vivek Kundra, the White House’s first chief information officer, is stepping down in the middle of August after two-and-a-half years in the post, according to the White House.

Mr. Kundra is leaving to become a joint fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Jacob Lew, the White House budget director said in a blog post on Thursday. He said the office was planning a “smooth transition” and would build on Mr. Kundra’s work.

A successor to Mr. Kundra was not immediately named.

The announcement comes as the White House is expected to spend roughly $80 billion this year on technology, funding that includes upgrading thousands of federal data programs and worker e-mails to cloud-based computer networks.

In a blog post Thursday morning, Mr. Lew extolled Mr. Kundra’s work to cut federal spending on technology and his efforts to make federal data more efficient, secure and accessible. Mr. Kundra’s work on data.gov and the Federal IT dashboard “has been replicated across the world,” Mr. Lew said.

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